


A Hunt

by rispacooper



Category: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Blow Jobs, First Kiss, First Time, Hand Jobs, Hunting, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-10
Updated: 2011-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-22 11:22:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rispacooper/pseuds/rispacooper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The boys go on a hunt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Hunt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coffeebuddha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeebuddha/gifts).



> For coffeebuddha who requested porn, hunting, and exposed thighs. Also possibly somewhat awkward first time mansex. This is the best I could do.
> 
> Also, oops, I realized a while ago that I don't know the Briton Roman/stirrup/riding practices and if the whole, shooting an arrow from horseback, thing works. Oh well. Porn.

Esca smiled. Marcus caught only a glimpse of his teeth over his shoulder, his hair momentarily lit as the sun burst through the canopy overhead, before Esca focused his attention back onto the chase and the animal they were running down.

It was Marcus who had suggested the hunt. The day had already been hot by midmorning and it would have been unbearable to remain indoors. Unbearable to stay in his room, his skin already sticky as though he had not bathed, his clothing damp and tight on overheated skin. Unbearable to leave his clothing on at all, and hide from sight and the sun like a coward while Esca taunted him by basking in the unusual weather.

Marcus had thought it would be better to be outdoors, doing anything but working as they had for the past week. He would rather be riding his horse. Moving quickly away from villa walls and city roads, the wind would cool him and he could ride until worn and weary and was unable to think of anything, certainly not the stinging at his cheeks and the fire in his guts or the shiver in his flesh as though he had been the one burned when he knew that wasn’t true.

Together they had ridden out past the bright orange trees and the scatterings of the spiky purple flowers Esca had planted, and then through the rows and rows of vines heavy with grapes when heading toward the roads had seemed like it would take too long and they could not be delayed another moment.

Esca’s new mount had been trained well before they’d bought it, but it already responded to Esca’s barest movements as if it lived to obey him, and Esca rewarded it generously with loving, slow touches and exquisite care. He leaned forward as he rode, as the two of them took to the wind, and he laughed as they flew ahead of Marcus, growing wilder as civilization disappeared and the trees began to swallow them up.

His haste would not allow him to slow, his haste and something else, something that had made him smile that smile that Marcus had felt slice through him though he hadn’t understood it. But he urged his horse to go faster, aware only that he needed to keep up.

It was the way of Esca the free man to be at Marcus’s side except for when he was not. He had a room, small but his own, that he slept in but little else, and that he returned to each night with a frown.

He woke early and bathed when Marcus did, his chin up and his cheeks ruddy with the heat as Marcus removed his clothing and stepped into the water. Steam clung to him, made him lick his lips until Marcus was immersed to his stomach and then he would take his time with his own clothes, staring at Marcus as his tunic vanished and his breeches were discarded, until he was naked and at the water’s edge. Once there he would turn his ferocious frown on any foolish enough to enter the baths while they were there.

Marcus did not think it modesty. Esca, too, had felt the heat. Though his bracchae remained slung low across his waist as he worked, he had forsworn his tunic some days ago. Marcus had looked up from his planting to see Esca bare-chested, his skin pale in so much sunlight, looking almost cool to the touch but for the glow of sweat at the back of his neck and the scorching fire of his gaze as he turned to Marcus.

He would not listen to talk of propriety and status, of what if visitors saw him as Marcus had seen him, of how a man was supposed to behave, though Marcus felt his own skin grow hotter as he tried to make Esca understand how things were and how they must be.

“Must,” Esca had finally responded, once, during their first days back, when Marcus had attempted to convince him of many things. “Until you give me a better reason, I think I will do only what I feel I must.”

Now Marcus had to contend with Esca half-naked where the world could see him, outside of the baths where it was, if not safe, then allowable to see such things. Esca, half-naked at his side, smelling of dirt and salt and attracting all eyes.

It was not the heat keeping Marcus from sleeping, but Esca of course had smiled at him that morning, _that_ smile, soft and viciously pleased and then had once again stripped off his tunic as they had walked outside.

His skin held a reddish tint now, his shoulders pink and hot to the touch, or so Esca had claimed, turning to flash his teeth at Marcus once again, his voice almost sweet despite the shadows under his eyes.

Marcus had remained clothed unless bathing, his only concession to the heat was abandoning the breeches of Briton and returning to the tunic and bare legs of Rome. He remained hot always, even at night, especially at night, his clothes rough on his skin as though he was the one who had been burned.

Esca had hissed as the warm waters of the bath had touched that rosy flesh, his head thrown back and his eyes wild. Then he had smiled, as though the pain was also relief.

“How does it feel?” Marcus had been compelled to ask, breaking the strained quiet between them, splashing water that scalded him for a distraction from Esca’s stare. Lately he found the baths offered him no relief, no relief at all.

Esca’s answer had come slowly, his attention focused solely on Marcus.

“If you wish to know, you should try it.” Esca had not smiled then, but Marcus still had not been able to look away.

Esca was too fast for him, his new mount swift, but it was still Marcus who had first spotted the boar, the large beast already running from the sound of their approach, pounding hooves and labored breathing. It was aware of what was coming.

Marcus’s blood raced as the boar’s would be, knowing its fate, struggling futilely anyway, so tired it longed to give in. Yet it ran, and Marcus frowned for it and dug in his heels, passing Esca for one moment as his horse leaped over a branch and they took the lead.

“A hunt.” The words had slipped from him that morning, seemingly from nowhere, though with the thought behind them that he could not take another day of working shoulder to pink, hot shoulder with Esca. Esca of no tunic and clean sweat.

His voice had nearly cracked like a boy’s. Esca had lowered his cup and left it under the stream of the fountain where it had quickly filled with cool water. Marcus’s throat had been dry, so he’d tried again. “We should have a hunt. We could use the meat.” He’d been breathing too hard, but Esca had been too still and too close, looking up at him. “And I could stand getting away.”

There was no escape for the boar. It was frothing at the mouth, run down to exhaustion. Its tusks remained fearsome but Esca did not seem afraid. He caught up again and the two of them were closing in, Esca a warm blur at the corner of Marcus’s vision, both of them panting and striving to go faster. Marcus’s heart echoed in his ears with the sound of hooves and savage cries and the memory of Esca’s smile as he reached for his spear and felt the shaft heavy in his palm.

“Getting away?” Esca seemed to have forgotten about his drink of water though Marcus had not. He’d thought of Esca’s mouth wet and had not stopped his shivering in time or averted his eyes fast enough. There was nothing Esca could not track. But Esca had only seemed curious. “From what?”

“This heat,” Marcus had finished, too long a delay in his answer, and almost gasping when Esca’s eyes had grown dark and serious before he had moved as if ready to walk away.

Esca was no longer at Marcus’s side. A blink and he was gone, though the boar was straight ahead and approaching a dense patch of trees, too dense to follow him if he risked it.

Marcus turned his head to look for Esca, stupidly, and as if sensing his carelessness, his exhaustion from countless sleepless nights, the boar turned too, turned and faced him and moved for one final brave charge.

“This?” Esca had spoken in a whisper as he’d thrown the cup down. “There is no getting away from this, Marcus.” The water had hit Marcus then, splashing onto his bare legs and Esca’s gaze had fallen there for a moment until Marcus had inhaled sharply.

Esca’s grin had been cruel for all that he had been short of breath. He’d raised his head with no warning and his smile had vanished. “But a hunt? I would like that.”

Doubtless he did, there was nothing like the thrill of the chase and the triumph of capture. A hunt meant hot blood and straining muscle and pleasure and danger, enough to make any man’s pulse quicken. It was worth the risk, worth almost anything.

There was no room and no time to turn, not with the boar moving into a run and his horse letting out a high nervous scream.

Marcus lifted the spear without slowing, aware he had one chance and one chance only, and held his breath as an arrow landed in the boar’s neck before he could throw his weapon. The boar stopped in its tracks, then toppled as another bolt followed the first.

Esca’s cry was sweet in Marcus’s ears as he slowed, as he tried to catch his breath and return to the dying animal, and to Esca, who was flushed as he slid from his mount to stand over his prize.

Marcus felt something hit him at Esca’s smile, so swiftly and stealthily that he neither heard nor saw a thing. He put a hand to his stomach. He could not slow his breath no matter how he tried and licked his lips though his mouth stayed dry.

“He had nowhere left to run,” Esca remarked, too pleased with himself to even chastise Marcus for his unusual carelessness as he might have done. He did glance over at the shadows beneath Marcus’s eyes, but as his eyes had the same marks of long nights, they held little sympathy.

“Well done, and thank you,” Marcus spoke at last, though the words emerged tight. Esca knelt down and drew his knife but then stopped. He handed the blade to Marcus as he got to his feet again and Marcus took it without thinking.

“The hunt is mine.” Esca smiled at him, smiled so that Marcus flushed even in the cool of the trees, and left Marcus to finish the animal off and gut it, as though Marcus were his servant. Perhaps he was, because he stayed silent, as he probably always should when Esca gave him that look.

“You are no longer my slave,” Marcus had explained to Esca after they’d returned from beyond the wall and Marcus had healed enough to move on his own again. He had struggled over his words then, his words to Esca, any words at all. The smiles between them had not seemed to need speech, but whenever he had tried anyway, strange, wrong things had emerged. Things to draw Esca closer and pull the smile from his face and see it replaced with something eager and hot, and belatedly, much too late, Marcus had recognized the danger.

“You do not need to share my room any longer, Esca,” he had tried at last, weak and shamefully quiet as Esca’s stares had pressed him to speak further. “I don’t need you to care for me. A man does not need such things and you do not need to do them.”

“Not if I don’t wish to?” Esca had not budged. Only a fool would argue with Esca’s frown. Marcus’s mouth had continued to move.

“Not at all.” Marcus had felt the words carved in stone, etched into him as colors had been driven into Esca’s skin, but had held back the rest of the foolish words building in his throat until Esca had eventually gone to his own room.

Marcus had not had a peaceful night since, and very few easy days.

It was no simple thing to refuse Esca, he had found. Esca’s blade was warm from his hand. Marcus had his own at his belt but he held Esca’s as he sank down beside the fallen beast. He looked up at Esca as he freed it from pain. The blood was hot as it splashed over his wrist. Esca’s lips were parted. Marcus looked up at Esca because truthfully, there was no place he would rather look, nothing he would rather see.

It was more than friendship, more than knowing that Esca was someone to be trusted above all others. It was something else, a shame that did not feel like one. No matter how Marcus tried to reason it out, clear thinking always left him when he thought of Esca.

Esca’s ears were too big for him, and he was small, especially when compared to Marcus. He was tender-hearted, a potentially dangerous trait, as well as stubborn and surprisingly devious. His eyes were a shade Marcus could not name any more than he could label the color of the Caledonian sky. Yet his body was strong and well-shaped, his mind and skills were sharp, and he had never learned to lower his head properly as a slave. He also made noises in his sleep, needy cries, barely audible.

He watched Marcus and though others thought him blank-faced, Marcus saw the delight in him when their eyes met and how Esca likewise sought better words for him and how Esca sometimes would stop after dinner and follow Marcus to the door of his room and wait, and how he shook as he did, fine tremors that Marcus could feel without being near him.

Esca had remained at Marcus’s side even when Marcus most wanted him to leave and left when Marcus wished for his presence more than he’d ever wanted anything save the Eagle.

Esca, once freed, had lain next to him in their time above the wall to stop Marcus’s shivering and now he lay far away each night and frowned for it. Marcus could not sleep without Esca’s night noises anymore than he could live without Esca. Esca must know that, _did_ know that. It was what made his gaze so searing Marcus could feel the burn even when Esca finally left his doorway.

It was bad enough that his mind would not stop wondering, that his eyes could not stop looking on Esca as if he were a woman. It was worse, unbearable, because Esca looked back.

The heat returned at the edge of the forest, hot enough to bring have sweat trickling into Marcus’s eyes, though the shore of the small lake was cool. Marcus left the horses and the boar carcass and knelt at the water’s edge to clean his hands and perhaps his thoughts, but the icy rush made him sigh and close his eyes and contemplate jumping in.

He reopened his eyes at the splash ahead of him and he stared with his face and body afire at the lines of Esca’s nudity as Esca ducked under the surface of the lake and then bounced back into sight, letting out a long worn breath, perhaps at the cold though it did not seem a sigh of relief.

Esca had moaned in his sleep that night above the wall, twisting against Marcus’s back in the forest floor, his cock erect, hard, pushing forward. Marcus had bitten his lip and stayed silent and let Esca shift against him. Esca had woken before spilling and Marcus had feigned sleep to a man who could track what Marcus could not, letting Esca stare at him in the dark and know from the tension in him how Marcus had wanted to turn and let Esca press into him and how he had not.

There was more for him to see now. Marcus had no time to avert his eyes.

Esca met Marcus’s gaze and took another long, slow breath, as though he were more tired than he seemed. Droplets of lake water rained down his skin, kissing dusky, peaked nipples and the flat skin of his lower stomach.

For a moment Marcus could see Esca attempting to speak and failing. Then Esca smiled and Marcus felt it in his belly, in his heart, down his spine, and shook for it. His limbs felt heavy, the air in his chest held him down.

“Esca.” He could barely speak but the name seemed to fill his mouth. “We must not.” But Esca started to come forward and Marcus did not move. There was water at Esca’s mouth, at his pink shoulders, and he curved his lips up, higher on one side, bloodlust and pride and desire in his smile in equal parts as he walked out of the water, his cock flushed and dark as he stopped before Marcus.

There was nowhere to run, if he’d wanted to. Was he to leap onto his horse and race home? He would not, and even if he did, Esca would follow, follow Marcus to the very door to his room and wait, wait until Marcus could take no more and beg for him.

Marcus looked up at him, into Esca’s face though he was tempted to study his dripping body until his final days, and heard himself breathing harshly in the quiet between them.

Esca knelt to face him at the sound, his knees hitting the edge of the water and sending icy drops onto Marcus’s tunic and down onto his knees, where Esca’s hands immediately followed. They slid up, over the too-hot skin of Marcus’s bared thighs, bared for the heat, and for Esca’s eyes on him, and possibly for this though Marcus had not wanted to admit it.

“I think we must,” Esca told him, softly arrogant as he pushed aside Marcus’s tunic and Marcus bit back a gasp.

“Esca?” There was uncertainty in his voice; he was already defeated, but Esca’s fingers curled into him and this time it was Esca who cried out, lowly, as though he were wounded. Marcus reached out. He was not sure where to touch Esca first, until he was.

Pink skin, hot at his fingertips, at his mouth. Esca let out a moan, his hold on Marcus tightening. Marcus knew that sound from the baths, from Esca with his eyes on Marcus as the heat took him, as if Marcus and pain were all he had. Like the fires in the pit of Marcus’s stomach when Esca looked at him and the ache in his throat that never vanished no matter how he swallowed.

Marcus slid his mouth shamelessly elsewhere, as his hands did the same, the pads of his fingers callused but soft at Esca’s ears and at his rough jaw, and down over his ribs to his navel, as soft as Esca was forceful, gripping him tightly and panting roughly for more.

“There was never getting away from this.” Esca’s heart was pounding too, as though he’d tried, as if he’d run until his chest was bursting and the chase lingered under his skin.

Marcus rose up at the thought, pushing forward to feel Esca’s hips and shoulder blades at his palms, Esca _here_ and with him, and Esca nodded as he moved his hand another fraction and stroked Marcus’s prick for the first time. Marcus clenched his jaw, staying silent until Esca pulled back to look at him and his thumb drew a slick bead from his cock.

“Esca,” he said again, asking, but Esca moaned with him at his weakness and took his hand away to untie Marcus’s belt and push his tunic up to his stomach, then to his chest. Marcus was all but naked, the sun beating down on him, and then Esca shoved and the coarse sand at the lake’s edge was suddenly at his back and his feet were wet as he allowed Esca to take him down and climb over him.

They both froze for one moment, Esca’s eyes wide open, and then he moved first, watching his hands as they traced Marcus’s arms and learned the planes of his chest.

The water made Marcus shiver, as did Esca’s mouth, which came to his skin only when Esca’s hands had had their fill. He licked at Marcus’s freckles and bit at slight childhood wounds and sucked hard at the strap scar under his chin, all the while with his hands at Marcus’s thighs, soft, then hard, urging them apart, and Marcus flushed to feel Esca’s swollen cock slide between them.

Esca’s eyes were wild, almost feverish when Marcus bit his lip but did not look away from the throb pressing into him. He grabbed at Marcus for one hot, tense moment, leaving bruises at his hip and along the inside of his thigh. Bruises for the world to see, should Esca ever allow anyone else into the baths with them. Marcus somehow thought he would not, not ever, but did not laugh, not with his chest tight and Esca nearly penetrating him.

His cock was pounding. He clutched at damp, burnt skin to bring Esca closer, or move him up, anything to feel more than just the brush of Esca’s chest against his aching cock, or the hot, unsatisfying slide between his legs. When that did not work he could hear the raspy whine of his own breathing, he arched up, frustrated at the wet yet dry emptiness of it.

“Please, Esca.” There was more. There had to be more. He frowned, the order slipping from him. “There _must_ be more.”

“Must?” Esca could still laugh, it seemed, but it was breathless and weak and he stopped to stare down at Marcus again. His face was red and damp and Marcus touched his cheeks, his mouth. He was too tired to fight the right words.

“Do not leave me, please.”

He saw Esca swallow, felt him tremble, and then Esca pulled back to tumble down over him, an arm on either side of his chest. Marcus lifted a hand to push at his hip and help hold him up until Esca’s knees landed in the sand and then his hand was on Esca, following one of Esca’s as he lowered it to his cock and stroked it for Marcus to see.

Marcus wet his mouth and then his hand as a boy might, before he shoved Esca’s hand away. On his back he watched Esca’s eyes close and his mouth fall open, watched him smile and frown and pant hoarsely with both pride and pleasure.

“Marcus,” he cried for every stroke as he had in his sleep, whisper-soft pleas for more as though Marcus’s hand was not full and slick and Marcus were not thrusting up into him and finding the thrill of this greater than any chase.

Esca glowed in the light, arching as Marcus squeezed him, and then he gasped and his spunk splashed hot onto Marcus with no warning, warm across already overheated skin. His chest was stained, as was his hand, but Marcus only put his head back and shuddered with want as Esca spurted his last onto him.

There was nowhere else, and he could bathe in the lake later, but when Marcus wiped his hand on his stomach, his fingers grazing Esca and adding to the smear of his seed, Esca raised his head.

He moved fast, only taking a moment to study Marcus before shifting down to press Marcus to the sand and take the tip of his cock in his mouth. He made a noise when Marcus instantly thrust up into his mouth despite telling himself he would not, a surprised but not unhappy sound, and licked curiously at the head. His mouth was hotter than the sun, wetter than any bath. Marcus’s release burst from him and he shook with it, on fire from the inside out at how Esca tried to move but still took some of his seed in his mouth and along his jaw.

Esca’s gaze on him in those moments after was intent, fearsome, but he came easily down when Marcus reached for him and he ran his hands over Marcus’s arms as he swallowed the taste of him, leaving light caresses over Marcus’s racing heart and along his throat until Marcus could speak at last.

“It was not bad?” He had to ask, his mouth oddly dry to see how Esca’s tongue caught each drop, and Esca paused.

“If you wish to know, Marcus, you must try it,” he murmured and was quite pleased with himself, with Marcus, when Marcus swore but did not object. Then Esca’s hands resumed their petting. Some thought Esca’s face blank. Marcus knew him to be very pleased, happy with Marcus again at long last, as if Marcus had freed him once more, or done something as simple as found him the seeds for those spiked flowers.

Marcus put his head back and blushed anew to feel Esca’s lips at his throat, above the fat tangle of Marcus’s tunic where it had been left in his haste to have Marcus beneath him. Esca’s hands would not stop touching him, rewarding him, and Marcus supposed he lived to obey.

He cleared his throat.

“The hunt is yours,” he agreed, hopefully the right words, things to be understood out loud and not only in the looks between them, and Esca snorted, the sound a touch bitter. But when he finally smiled, Marcus pulled him down to press their mouths together until he smiled as well.

 

The End


End file.
